


drowned men can never sleep

by lonelyghosts



Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: (not intentionally; neptune doesn't know venus is a trans girl), Angst, Character Study, F/F, Misgendering, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 05:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16989039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: Neptune just wants to save someone.





	drowned men can never sleep

**Author's Note:**

> tws for terminal illness, body horror, mentions of drowning, blood, religion... essentially basically canon-typical we know the devil stuff.
> 
> this is kind of a spiritual successor/companion piece to [no place safer than the fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774218), which is a jupiter character study. you don't need to have read either of these in order to understand the other, though; they work as standalones as well!

She sees it the entire evening. The way the two of them cluster together, whisper secrets, laugh giddy in the closet, petting each other's hair. How they look at her with pity and distaste- poor Neptune, the dirty one. Who can't learn how to be good. Who is wrong and misled and rude. She hates it.

They are so good, the two of them.

Venus all shy-brightness, unaware of most things, always looking for something that will make him happy. So innocent in his insensitivity, always trying to make amends for the things he says that he doesn't know are awful. He's the kind of kid that adults love, that other kids hate because he's just so fucking awkward and weird and good, so well-intentioned. Venus wants the world to be good, Venus wants to make the world fair. 

And Jupiter, larger than life, their informal leader, always wanting to be good enough. The perfect leader, the perfect athlete, the one who laughs off every slight and injury, always grinning, always making her soft vulnerabilities into jokes. She's good at everything except being good enough. 

Neptune hates it. 

In her chest there is something sickening. Black and vile, the taste of bile in her throat. Always sick, always rotten-apple, the water thick in her lungs. Here she is, so far from home, and her parents are saying in her head that if she was just good enough, if she just tried harder, then God would cure her. 

She's given up trying at this point. 

The thing is that she knows how easy it is to want to be good. How could she not? Neptune looks at Jupiter sometimes and sees the little Catholic daughter dipped in baptismal water. Never looking at the other girls. Folded chaste hands. Never giving in to her aching heart. Memorizing the Bible verses, saying her prayers every night- she was the altar girl, the liturgical reader, the girl that adults cooed at after mass. She used to be the apple of God's eye, loved enough to take a bite. 

But His apples are always rotten, in the end. Just look at Eve.

You wouldn't know it to look at her- who would think it? Neptune with her thick eyeshadow, unapproachable. Foundation thick to hide the hollow purple circles under her eyes. Her black nail polish- no one ever sees the way her nails are turning blue, the way her skin is getting thinner by the day. She is sunken cheeks and jutting ribs and all of it is hidden under black clothes and makeup till they think the way her eyes are half-lidded most of the time isn't because of the way the treatments drain all the energy out of her body but because she just doesn't give a shit. It's all an act.

Neptune doesn't look the part but she knows the urge to please. To become someone else for love. She has learned the way kneeling feels, has learned it from altars and confession booths and cold pews, but in the end no matter how hard you try it is never enough. Neptune has cut off every part of herself for their love and it was still not enough, so she took her body back, sick as it was. At least it was hers.

These two good kids just outside the bathroom door, wanting nothing more than to cure each other, and her too- they don't understand that yet, if they ever will. They are bonding over the way they ache to be good. Neptune's heart hurts to look at them. Her lungs ache. She is breathless, drowning in her own black water.

Be good, Neptune's father says. She coughs once, twice, three times. Blood and bile in the white porcelain of the sink. She watches the water wash it away, but her sick is not something you can wash away. It stains the white.

Neptune looks at Venus and Jupiter and wants nothing more than to reach her hands out and save them both from God. They are two beacons of storm-light in the dark black water of this flooded, tainted church. How hard is it to be the beacons? How lonely is it, to live in dedication of others who will never accept you?

These two kids. Saving them would be the best and worst thing that Neptune has ever done. Her hands are dripping black wetness; blood-bile drips down her lips. The devil speaks in words made of smoke and honey, and she wants nothing more than for all of them to be happy.

She wants to save them, these two tryhard kids. She knows her prognosis. Neptune's never going to get to love a girl the way she wants to, never going to hold someone's hand on the walk home. Six months is almost up, and Neptune's headed for a coffin. 

But here, in this small way, she can become an act of love. It's not enough- it's never enough- but it's something, and that's all she needs.

Neptune is flooded with love and hate and wickedness.The devil is calling out to her in its smoke-signal voice, and Neptune is bound by blood and sickness and the unspoken oaths that all once-good girls have to their still-good suffering sisters; to help, to take their hands and show them the way. She cannot stand idly by and watch them burn down to wicker stubs in the night, so desperately hoping for the love they deserve.

Drowned men can never sleep. The drowned can never let things lie, and Neptune is no exception. She is sick in all ways, she is the spirit in the lake, she is the horror story that the whole town ignores. She is a monster, and she won't let anyone ignore her and what she represents- the things that God will do to the kids who are never good enough.

The devil whispers, makes a promise, and Neptune cannot help but want what she's offering. She's too far gone for saving- has been for a long time- but she can save two other kids from her destiny, and that's more than enough for her. 

The black-blue of the bottom of the deep water. The dragging coughs of that evil sickness that awaits good kids who are never good enough. Neptune opens her mouth and lets the devil come in.


End file.
